Maze of Moonlight Read online

  Varden did not look up. “And do you wish that I had not loved your mother?”

  “I . . .” How much did Varden's kind feel? Did they bleed? Of course they did. The Inquisition had demonstrated that over and over again. But could they bleed inside? Could they feel that day-to-day gnawing that could turn every hour into a new trial, every careless word into a pang of fear? Lake did not know.

  But Varden was weeping silently now: a grief too deep for utterance, a sorrow that struck its roots down into the infinite ages of the past. Did he feel? Of course he did.

  “Forgive me,” said Lake.

  Varden shook his head. “It is I who should ask forgiveness. I have troubled you. That was not my intent. It is not the intent of our—” Instinctive courtesy made him catch himself. “Of my people.”

  “We've needed t' talk,” said Lake heavily, “if only t' shout at one another. I guess we've both known that for a long time.”

  Varden nodded.

  “You want to know about Vanessa.”

  “Tell me. Please.”

  “Why? Wha' can you do for her?”

  “I would protect her.”

  The transparency made a mockery of Varden's words. Lake glared at him. “You can't protect her. You can't do anything for her.”

  Shadowed and glimmering in the dusk left by the low fire, Varden took a deep breath. “Tell me.”

  “She's . . . different.” Lake spoke softly, unwillingly, as though his utterance might make more real an already too real fact. “The other children, they grew up, married, started families. Charlotte wa' the last. She's up in Furze now wi' a hat maker, an' doing well. Anthony lives a few fields awa'. He's the eldest, ha' children of his own, and Baron Paul waived the inheritance fees: when I die, he'll take my fields wi'out cost or question.” He stared moodily into the fire. “All o' them, all quite normal. And then . . . Vanessa.”

  Varden leaned forward, listening.

  “She wa' strange from the beginning,” Lake went on, just as softly, just as unwillingly. “Even when she wa' barely talking, she spoke o' things that set the priest to crossing hi'self. She'd go an' play with the river as though it were another child, and she'd talk to birds like she thought they'd answer.” Above, in the loft, he heard his daughter stir, cry out softly in her sleep, fall silent again. “We tried to ignore it, but it kept getting worse, and now . . .” He shook his head. “It's as if she in't really one o' us.”

  Varden's starlit eyes were intent, fixed. “What do you do about it, Lake?”

  “Wha' am I supposed to do?” Lake shrugged helplessly. “Foster it? It's as though she's old and young at once. She says strange things, asks odd questions. She's always talking about the patterns—”

  “The Dance.”

  “She calls it the patterns. She tells people what's going to happen. She's ne'er wrong. But she dan talk much to me. I can't say but that I dan let her.”

  Varden looked alarmed. With a guilty glance at the loft, Lake sat down, leaned towards him, spoke earnestly. “I grew up i' Saint Brigid,” he said. “They tolerated such things there. It's different now, I'm sure, but of all the Free Towns, Saint Brigid probably still tolerates them.”

  Varden nodded. “They do.”

  “They even tolerated Ma, so long as she wa' . . . discreet.”

  “They did. And they love Charity.”

  Lake shook his head. “I couldn't stand it i' Saint Brigid. E'eryone knew, an' so I ran awa'. I wanted to be . . . human. I wanted to fit in. I din't want people pointing at me, whispering to one another. There he goes, they'd say. There he is, the Elf-child. One o' us, and yet not. I ran awa' from that, came to Furze Hamlet here, settled down. I learned the ways, married, had children . . . and now . . . now it's all cam back on me, and it's put us all in danger.”

  “Does the priest trouble you?” Varden was keeping his voice carefully neutral.

  Lake grimaced. “Bonnerel is a good man. At first he spoke o' it as some kind of holy vision . . . like Clare or Hildegard. But he's always been uneasy about what he's heard about me, and he's frightened by what he sees in Vanessa, because she really in't anything like Clare or Hildegard. He's getting more frightened, too, an' he might just do something sa'day.” He passed a hand across his moist brow. Someday? Any day. “I can't blame him. She's like sa'thing out o' the forest.”

  “Vanessa is as human as you.”

  “Aye, Varden. Tha's it exactly. As human as me.” Lake felt the anger rising again. Varden could talk of comfort, could mumble all the reassuring words that he wanted, but that did not change in the slightest the fact that Lake could not look into his daughter's eyes without having his own denials and fears thrown into his face like a bucket of hot pitch. “Tell me, now. How human am I? How much starlight do you see in me? What kind o' fading does such as I face?”

  If Lake's words had stung, Varden gave no sign. “What do you intend to do for her?” he said.

  Lake stood up, folded his arms, hung his head. “God know. I dan. I'll think of sa'thing, though. What wi' the schism and all, the Church is turning bad. Gregory set the Inquisition loose on sorcery some years back, and so I'm ha'way expecting . . .” He shrugged. He did not want to say it. Someday. Any day.

  But Varden was shaking his head. “The Inquisition has attempted before to make inroads into Adria. It was last directed at the Free Towns, at the instigation of Baron Roger of Aurverelle. It failed.”

  “That was before I was born,” said Lake, “an' people still talk about it as though it were some kind o' miracle. I suppose it was, too: Roger just turned around and let the Towns go. Just like tha'. But times have changed. E'en the Free Towns ha' changed. It could happen again. And in any case, it wan't take a crusade to claim Vanessa, only one frightened priest and a few woman-hating Dominicans.”

  “And what about you?”

  Lake snorted. “I'm nearly fifty. I've lived. I've seen enough, and I'm tired of it. I can leave it.” He felt Varden's starlit eyes. Fifty years? Compared to a lifetime measured in eons? Varden had watched the making of the world, and here was Lake insisting that his own tastes had become jaded after only fifty years.

  But Varden said nothing. He did not have to. The transparency about him was eloquent enough.

  “But Vanessa is young,” Lake forced himself to say. “She dan deserve that.” He shook his head, covered his face with his hands. “My God, she's fourteen. She should be married by now, or at least we should be planning it. But no one i' the village . . . I mean, wha' man in his right mind—”

  “Would you . . .” Varden spoke slowly, hesitantly. “Would you let me see her? Perhaps—”

  “Stay awa' from her,” Lake snapped. Varden was silent, and Lake looked up at the loft uneasily. “You've got to understand,” he said, his voice a taut whisper, “you are as you are. That's all. But Vanessa and I . . . We're struggling just to be human. It's na simple in this world. We ha' to fight for it, and it hurts us.” The starlight gleamed in Varden's eyes, and Lake's voice shook. “Maybe it will kill us. I dan know. God knows.”

  “Or the Lady.”

  Lake nodded, torn between beliefs, between races, between worlds. “Whate'er, Varden.”

  Silence again. Finally, Varden nodded and rose. “Forgive me for troubling you. Do what you think is best. Roxanne is gone, and I begin to understand now that my work is done. Indeed . . .” He shook his head sadly. “. . . I wonder whether I have not marred as much as I have made.”

  “You dan know?”

  “Everything is fading. We do not see as we used to. The world is for men now.”

  Varden went to the door, cast his cloak about his shoulders; and Lake wondered whether he was now seeing the wall behind him as through a thin veil, whether the shadow Varden cast had lightened from black to gray. Fading, like all his kind, leaving a shadowy legacy behind that, with time, would itself fade into the mortal blood of the world.

  But a thought seemed to strike Varden, and he returned to the hearth as he unfastened a chain from his neck. A pendant in the form of a moon and a rayed star swung flashing in the dull glow of the fire.

  “Give this to Vanessa,” he said. “Tell her its origins or not as you think best. But—please—give it to her.”

  Lake took it as though it were a serpent. “And wha' can this do for her?”

  Varden shrugged. “A sign,” he said. “Perhaps a token if she ever needs one. Or, if not, a bauble to catch the eye of a husband.” He smiled thinly. “The hand of the Lady be upon you, Lake.”

  And then he opened the door and was gone. And though Lake looked after him, it seemed that Varden's form and the gleam of starlight that veiled him faded long before he had gone far into the falling snow. The road was suddenly empty and dark. All that was left was the cold, and the night, and the snow.

  Fading.

  Lake closed the door, barred it, and banked the fire carefully; and then he climbed the narrow stairs to the loft, undressed, and crawled under the thick comforter next to his wife. Miriam smiled in her sleep and snuggled closer to him, shifting her head from the feather pillow to his strong shoulder; and he wrapped an arm about her as though to shield her from Varden and all that he represented, as though to gather in his embrace all the mortality and humanity to which he could make some small claim and hold it up as a bulwark against the comforting, frightening, dangerous, immortal light of the stars.

  Miriam, at least, was safe: peasant born, stout, smiling, and happy. Vanessa, though, sleeping uneasily a few feet away, tossing amid visions of patterns and futures, was another matter. Well, at least she could sleep. At least she had that much.

  The pendant burned in his hand like a latent stigmata. He resolved not to give it to her. Not tomorrow, at least. Perhaps someday, but not tomorrow.

&
nbsp; Roxanne was dead. His mother. And now Varden was gone to whatever fate folded soft wings of oblivion about those in whom the immortal blood of the Elves ran pure.

  The tears finally came. Truly, he was alone now. “The hand o' the Lady be upon you too, Da,” he whispered, and then he forced sleep to accept him.

  Chapter Three

  “He had the Free Towns in his pouch and let them go again!”

  Christopher, or rather, the outward semblance of Christopher, crouched in the windowsill of his bedroom, his back to the shutters, looking, Pytor thought with a pang, like northing so much as the escaped monkey, save that they monkey was as hairy as a devil and Christopher had been subjected to as much of a shave and a haircut as the castle barber could manage.

  Eyes wide, the baron fixed his gaze on Pytor. “What do you want now? You want to prick me with needles? Fry me in pans? Oh, a soft prison is a hard bed indeed, when you've seen your friends cut up like capons!”

  Guillaume, the castle physician, entered the room behind Pytor and shut the door. He examined Christopher from a distance. “Not much better, is he?”

  “No,” said Pytor heavily. “Not much better at all.”

  “To be expected,” said Guillaume. “Can't have everything at once. Takes time. Took three years to get him this way: three weeks isn't going to fix him.”

  Pytor was wringing his cap in his hands. “I should like it very much if we saw some improvement.”

  Christopher bobbed his head like a brain-damaged hawk. Guillaume chewed over his answer. “Hard to do anything. Won't lie down, won't take his medicine. G et rid of his fever, he'd do better. Could tie him up and dose him, I guess.”

  “Tie up the baron of Aurverelle?”

  Guillaume shrugged. “They tie up the king of France.”

  The physician was right, but Pytor was uncomfortable with such extremes. Perhaps he was a little afraid of Christopher—what would happen if the baron abruptly recovered his senses and discovered that he was bound?—but he admitted to himself that it was more likely that he did not want to confirm the seriousness of his master's condition. To have to tie him up would say, unequivocally, uncompromisingly, that, yes, Christopher delAurvre was mad, totally mad, and would best be chained to the rood screen in the chapel with a cross shaved into his hair.

  Christopher pointed at the two men and giggled, then whooped, then waved his arms and growled like a bear. “Grandpa Roger knew what to do, didn't he? He planted peach trees!” More giggling, more growls. The baron seemed torn between despair and hideous amusement.

  Pytor winced. “Isn't there anything else we can do?”

  “Tried them. He threw things at the musicians. Tore the clothes off one of the tumblers. Frightened Efram and the lads near to death when they tried to sing. The books say happiness. I'm not one to contradict the books. But if he won't take it, he won't take it.”

  “Happiness sounds like a good idea,” Pytor agreed. “He had not had much happiness these last years.”

  “Hard trip. Had to be.”

  Pytor nodded, but Christopher's repeated mention of his grandfather had made him suspect that there was more to the baron's condition than was immediately obvious. “Yes,” he said. “That too.”

  With a sudden leap, Christopher launched himself from the windowsill and threw himself on Pytor and Guillaume. His fevered madness lent him strength, and as neither the seneschal nor the physician were willing to use much force against him, he easily tumbled them to the ground.

  But an attack was not what Christopher appeared to have in mind. He left the two men sprawling, and his hands, trembling as though with palsy, went to the door latch, lifted it . . .

  . . . and then he was off running down the hall, howling, with Pytor and Guillaume right behind him. Barefoot, Christopher pattered down the rush-strewn hallway, leaping over chests, vaulting balustrades, descending stairwells hand-over-hand rather than on his feet. Pytor shouted for guards, but the men of Castle Aurverelle were no more willing to use force on their baron than was he, and so Christopher gained the front door of the residence and bounded out across the court.

  Wondering only for a moment what idiot had left the door open, Pytor plunged out into the November cold. The wind smelled of frost, and the eaves and ledges of the castle were dripping with icicles, but he did not have time to regret or even think about a cloak: as weak and fevered as he was, Christopher would not last long in such weather. Pytor had to get his master back into bed. Or at least back indoors.

  But Christopher had vanished among the nooks and buildings of the inner court. And now it started to snow.

  Pytor called for more men and ordered a thorough search of the inner court. Stables, kennels . . . even the mews was examined, the hawks and falcons fluttering and preening nervously at the sound of heavy feet. One or two of the more slender guards stripped off their mail and shinnied up drain pipes and down into cisterns.

  More snow. The temperature dropped steadily. Pytor was close to tears. He had wanted his master back, and he had been granted that wish. But his master was not his master, and though these last three weeks he had prayed earnestly for a return of Christopher's senses, now he would have been satisfied simply with his safety.

  A gaunt form flitted across the rooftops. Pytor opened his mouth to cry out, but it was only the escaped monkey. And was the baron winging across some other roof, perhaps? Pytor felt disloyal for the thought.

  In the end, it was Efram, the priest, who found Christopher. Two hours later, when most of the men had given up, the old cleric came quietly, tapped Pytor and Guillaume on the shoulder, and beckoned for them to follow.

  Silently, they crossed the inner court and entered the chapel through the main doors. It was a small building that had been tucked into an interior corner of the surrounding walls, but thanks to the habitual ostentation of the delAurvres, it made up in ornament and splendor for what it lacked in size. Even on this gloomy day, the stained glass was radiant, and the furnishings of the altar glistened with gold, embroidered silk, and gems.

  Efram tottered along the side aisle and, putting his finger to his lips, led his two companions down into the crypt. They stepped slowly and silently as they went down the stairs, and Pytor heard, growing louder as they descended, the sound of dry sobbing.

  The chapel was gothic. The crypt, dark and low-ceilinged, was romanesque. Eleven generations of delAurvres were buried here, and the air was heavy with death and wealth. Flat stones marked the resting places of the few barons who had decided that their Creator was best met humbly, but recumbent figures in armor and finery filled the room.

  And, off in the corner, where slept Roger, a pitifully thin figure was kneeling, embracing the cold effigy with both arms, one cheek against the stone face. He was sobbing, but between sobs he was speaking. Pytor drew near. The words, muffled, took on shape.

  “I'm sorry,” Christopher was saying. “I'm sorry.”

  Pytor and Guillaume lifted him gently and took him back to his room. And now Christopher seemed docile. He stared at the ceiling, the tears coming still, but he drank his medicine without complaint. But Pytor, though he rejoiced inwardly at this change for the better, worried still, for Christopher's utterances had turned into a quiet litany of contrition.

  “I'm sorry,” he said, over and over. “I'm sorry.”

  ***

  Yvonnet a'Verne, baron of Hypprux, had taken after his great uncle, Roger of Aurverelle. Through the inbred marital liaisons of Adria, Hypprux—along with almost every major barony of the land—had ties with a multitude of noble houses; and the face that Yvonnet had acquired Roger's sheer physical size was, perhaps, something of the luck of the draw. Yvonnet, however, did not mind this at all, for Roger's stature had gone hand in hand with a willingness to resort to physical violence even under the mildest of provocations, and the baron of Hypprux was quite willing to capitalize on his ancestor's reputation.

  At present, though, he was only glowering at some bad news. “He's back?” he said.

  Lengram a'Lowins, chamberlain of Hypprux, nodded. “The reports are fairly reliable,” he said. “We don't have any . . . ah . . . informants in Aurverelle, but for this it wasn't necessary. Christopher returned about a month ago.”